Æsacus,1the Son of Priam, loving a Country-Life, forsakes the Court: Living obscurely, he falls in Love with a Nymph; who, flying from him, was killd by a Serpent; for Grief of this, he would have drownd himself; but, by the pity of the Gods, is turned into a Cormorant. Priam, not hearing of Æsacus, believes him to be dead, and raises a Tomb to preserve his Memory. By this Transition, which is one of the finest in all Ovid, the Poet naturally falls into the Story of the Trojan War, which is summd up, in the present Book, but so very briefly, in many Places, that Ovid seems more short than Virgil, contrary to his usual Style. Yet the House of Fame, which is here describd, is one of the most beautiful Pieces in the whole Metamorphoses. The Fight of Achilles and Cygnus, and the Fray betwixt the Lapythæ and Centaurs, yield to no other part of this Poet: And particularly the Loves and Death of Cyllarus and Hylonome, the Male and Female Centaur, are wonderfully moving

Note 1. The text is from the original of 1700, except as noted. The original was carelessly printed. The current texts have some ugly errors, as in 524 where Ovids words are Nec te pugnantem tua, Cyllare, forma redemit, and in 826. The original has many false stops. [back]